Critical Essay by William A. Johnson

SOURCE: Johnson, William A. “Swedenborg as a Modern Thinker: His Influence Upon American Thought.” American Swedish Historical Foundation Yearbook (1966): 23-36.

In the following essay, Johnson offers a sketch of Swedenborg's philosophical and religious ideas before discussing his influence on nineteenth-century American thought, in areas including Deism, neo-Platonism, Unitarianism, and the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

A.

However one would want to evaluate Emanuel Swedenborg, one can only conclude that he is one of the most extra-ordinary men that ever lived! He belongs properly in that company of the greatest creative geniuses that this world has produced. One must, of necessity, deal with him in the same grouping of intellectual superman as Archimedes, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Spinoza, and whomever else one would want to include in that hallowed circle of the most esteemed...